School district survey: Not enough people know about services for gifted students

Tuesday

Apr 17, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 18, 2012 at 6:51 PM

A survey about school district services for gifted students revealed that many people are unaware the service exist.

ALAN FROMAN, ThisWeek Community News

A survey about school district services for gifted students revealed that many people are unaware the service exist.

Superintendent Ed O'Reilly presented Grandview Heights Board of Education members with an overview of survey responses at their meeting Monday, April 16. The 10-question survey was sent to all families who are on the district's School Messenger list, O'Reilly said.

The district received 182 responses out of the nearly 1,200 sent, the survey, which is "a pretty good return," he said."We wanted to get a feel for (what parents think about) our gifted services," O'Reilly said.

It appears that a good number of people are unaware of all the services offered, he said.

The need for the district to do a better job of communicating what services it offers for gifted students was something that "jumped out" from the survey results, O'Reilly said.

A total of 115 people indicated that their child had been identified as gifted, but only 90 indicated that child had received gifted services from the district, he said.

Of 144 responses to the question of what type of services their child had received, 76 indicated they received services through pull-out programs, 40 said they received services through Advanced Placement offerings, 39 said course acceleration and 37 received services through an inclusion model.

A number of other programs received a minimal number of positive responses.

Out of 108 responses to the question of whether they are satisfied with the gifted services received, about 35 percent of parents said they were pleased and 40 percent indicated they were dissatisfied.

The remainder of the responses to that question were in the form of constructive criticism, O'Reilly said.

Among the most common themes from those comments were:

• The district has not done a good job communicating to parents about the gifted program.• If so many Grandview students are identified as gifted, courses should be more rigorous across the district.

• Some parents stated they believe identifying 40 percent of students as gifted, using state criteria, was much too high while others believed it was a low estimation.

• A number of parents said they wanted to know more about how the district determines that a student is gifted and some indicated they needed more follow-up from the district and teachers about the services their child is receiving.

Parents also were asked what they think the district should do, given that the state does not require schools to provide services to gifted students and provides little or no funding for gifted services. In addition, Grandview does not serve all students identified as gifted.

Out of 169 responses, 108 parents said the district should expand its services, 53 said it should maintain the current level and nine people said Grandview should reduce its services.O'Reilly said he is working with Nancy Schott, the district's director of pupil services, and other staff members involved with gifted students to consider how Grandview can increase its services and "reach out to even more students."

He said he plans to bring some recommendations to the board at a future meeting.

In other business Monday, O'Reilly reported that a project to resurface the track at the football stadium is scheduled to begin June 4. While the resurfacing work is being done, the track will be closed to the public, he said.The work is needed to make sure the lifespan of the track surface is extended, O'Reilly said.